I'd forgotten how good it was.  The smell of turpentine.  That silky feeling of oil on my fingers from tubes that have long sat dormant by the easel.  The mess.  The crack of bristles and rough sound of canvas.  The pull of brush in paint.

When I put that smock over my head and tied that little bow behind my waist and laid out my canvas and readied my brushes I felt something akin to what an ex-smoker must feel when offered that lit cigarette after so many years.  I wanted it.  I wanted the mess of it and the smell of it.  I wanted the sense of creator because no matter what came out of the end of my brush it would be mine, a piece of myself stroked upon white.  My heart on my sleeve.

Art.  Inspired by another artist who captures with a lens.  Made into my own.  And I am deeply satisfied and stained, with green beneath my fingernails and joy in my heart.